museum 'poachers'

Kathy Reinertsen bfly4u at swbell.net
Tue Apr 9 20:26:05 EDT 2002


Do Museums pay for rare specimens?
Do people make money collecting for Museums, ect.?
Ed Reinertsen

James Kruse wrote:

> on 4/9/02 11:24 AM, Martin Bailey at cmbb at sk.sympatico.ca wrote:
>
> > If your local museum does not have a specimen of that rare or unusual bird
> > or bug that you sighted, they will make it a point of going out and
> > "collecting" it.  I never give detailed directions over these computer lists
> > on how to get to anything.  There is poaching with a gun for trophies and
> > there is poaching for trophies backed by vague scientific reasonings.
> >
> > Martin Bailey
> >
>
> Talk about conspiracy theories and black helicopters...
>
> It is "funny" how many people believe that if a museum hears of your rare
> sighting, they dispatch the 'killing team' to take care of business. When
> birds from the Palaearctic stray to Alaska, many birders flock up to see
> them. The museum always gets calls from these folks asking if the bird is
> "still there or did the museum collect it yet?"! As far as I know, the
> museum ornithologists are not sneaking over to people's houses and shooting
> birds off their feeders. On the other hand, serious "life-list birders"
> clearly are not so inhibited, since every time one of these rare birds show
> up in town, hundreds of people fly up from all over the U.S. and Canada and
> invade private property to get a look/picture for their life lists. Yes, the
> first couple of them ask permission, but then the rest show up and hang out
> for days or weeks.
>
> Speaking for myself, I am not trolling the net for lepidopteran species on
> my "list" and then traveling across the country and trampling anyone's
> butterfly garden to collect (or get a photo). I think a more valid concern
> is that every time you post to a list-serve, someone collects your email to
> send you spam later.
>
> We have lynx here. I have seen them. Oh-oh... what have I done?
>
> (fade in background caterwauling of lynx, and then the distant thunder of
> black helicopters with guns bristling.... and as they get closer, the logo
> of the local museum can be seen...)
>
> Jim
>
> James J. Kruse, Ph.D.
> Curator of Entomology
> University of Alaska Museum
> 907 Yukon Drive
> Fairbanks, AK, USA 99775-6960
> tel 907.474.5579
> fax 907.474.1987
> http://www.uaf.edu/museum/ento
>
>
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